From spatio-temporal data to chronological networks: An application to wildfire analysis
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Network theory has established itself as an important tool for complex systems analysis and pattern recognition. In the context of spatiotemporal data analysis, correlation networks are used in the vast majority of works. However, the Pearson correlation coefficient captures only linear relationships and does not properly capture recurrent events. This missed information is very important for temporal pattern recognition. In this work, we propose a chronological network construction process that is capable of capturing various events. Similar to the previous methods, we divide the area of study into grid cells and represent them by nodes. In our approach, links are established if two consecutive events occur in two different nodes. Our method is computationally efficient, adaptable to different time windows and can be applied to any spatiotemporal data set. As a proof-of-concept, we evaluated the proposed approach by constructing chronological networks from the MODIS dataset for fire events in the Amazon basin. We explored two data analytic approaches: one static and another temporal. The results showed some activity patterns on the fire events and a displacement phenomenon over the year. The validity of the analyses in this application indicates that our data modeling approach is very promising for geographical systems mining.
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